Police shooting disparities vary wildly by state, and gun ownership rates do not explain why

RAND Corporation / PLOS

In Mississippi, the gap between the rate at which police fatally shoot Black residents and the rate for White residents is 0.5 per 100,000 people. In Utah, that gap is 6.72. Same country, same policing system in broad strokes, but a thirteenfold difference in racial disparity.

A new analysis by Roland Neil of the RAND Corporation and colleagues, published March 11, 2026, in PLOS ONE, set out to map how racial and ethnic disparities in fatal police shootings vary across U.S. states and to test whether state-level firearm ownership rates could explain the variation. The short answer on firearms: they cannot.

State-by-state variation in Black-White disparities

The researchers analyzed Washington Post data on fatal shootings by police between 2015 and 2020. Nationally, Black Americans are roughly three times as likely to die by police shooting as White Americans, and about twice as likely as Hispanic Americans. But these national averages mask enormous state-level differences.

The five states with the largest Black-White disparities, in order, were Utah, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Colorado, and Missouri. The five with the smallest were Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia. The pattern is not intuitive. States in the Deep South, often associated with racial inequality, showed some of the narrowest gaps, while western and midwestern states showed some of the widest.

Hispanic-White disparities driven by the Southwest

Nationally, Hispanic Americans are more likely to die by police shooting than White Americans. But in most individual states, Hispanic shooting rates were actually lower than White rates. The national disparity appears to be driven primarily by a handful of Southwestern states, including New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California, which combine large Hispanic populations with particularly wide Hispanic-White gaps and high overall shooting rates.

This finding complicates simplistic national narratives. The forces driving racial disparities in police violence are not uniform across the country. They vary, sometimes dramatically, in ways that suggest local and state-level factors play an outsized role.

Guns raise the floor but do not widen the gap

States with higher rates of civilian firearm ownership had higher rates of fatal police shootings for all racial and ethnic groups. This is not surprising: when officers encounter armed individuals more frequently, the overall shooting rate rises. But the analysis found that gun ownership rates did not explain why some states had much wider racial disparities than others. Whatever is driving the state-level variation in racial gaps, it is not simply differential exposure to firearms.

The researchers did not identify which factors do explain the variation. The study was designed to document the pattern and test the firearm hypothesis, not to provide a comprehensive causal model. Candidate explanations could include differences in policing practices, training, departmental policies, residential segregation patterns, economic inequality, or the racial composition of police forces, but none of these were directly tested.

Limitations of the data

The study relies on the Washington Post's database of fatal police shootings, which is compiled from news reports and public records. While it is widely regarded as the most comprehensive available source, it may undercount shootings in areas with less media coverage. Non-fatal shootings and other forms of police violence are not included.

State-level analysis groups together very different local contexts. A state like California contains both dense urban areas and rural regions with very different policing dynamics. County- or city-level analysis might reveal additional patterns obscured at the state level.

The study period, 2015-2020, predates the national reckoning over police violence that followed George Floyd's killing in 2020. Patterns may have shifted since then, though systematic data on post-2020 trends are still emerging.

Firearm ownership rates are measured at the state level using proxy variables, not direct surveys, which introduces measurement uncertainty. And the analysis cannot account for how firearms are distributed within states across racial and geographic lines.

Where the data point next

The practical value of this research lies in its specificity. If disparities vary this much between states, then the causes are at least partly local, and so are the potential solutions. National policy frameworks may be necessary, but they are not sufficient. Understanding why Utah's disparity is thirteen times Mississippi's could illuminate which state-level factors are most amenable to change.